Group Recommends Stronger Road Safety Laws
The Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety have recommended that states pass a set of 15 laws the group believes will significantly increase safety on our nation's highways.
March 20, 2013
Group Recommends Stronger Road Safety LawsArticle provided by Kammholz Messina, LLP
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Over the last ten years, the incidence of fatal motor vehicle accidents has fallen to an all-time low. Several factors have played a role in the recent drop, including advances in vehicle safety, improved highway systems and public awareness campaigns aimed at stopping drunk driving, distracted driving and other dangerous behaviors. While the drop in traffic fatalities is, of course, a good thing, some safety advocates suggest that safer highways have caused complacency among state lawmakers, who are now ignoring the need for stronger road safety laws.
2012 Saw Increase in Fatalities
Recent statistics have spurred the calls for stricter highway safety laws. According to preliminary data released in early December by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), road deaths for the first nine months of 2012 increased 7.1 percent over the same period in 2011. This marks the largest year-over-year increase since 1975.
The Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group that grades states' implementation of traffic safety laws, hopes that state lawmakers see the NHTSA's preliminary data as a wake-up call. Years of declining fatality numbers, combined with a political climate unfavorable to government regulation in many states, led to fewer new traffic laws in 2012. In 2010, for example, state legislatures across the United States enacted a total of 22 new traffic safety laws. In 2012, however, legislatures enacted a total of 10.
The Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety have recommended that states pass a set of 15 laws the group believes will significantly increase safety on our nation's highways. The laws cover everything from seatbelt use to drunk driving and even teen driving safety. While no state has enacted all 15 recommended laws, some states have, in the group's view, fallen dangerously behind on traffic safety issues. A continuing concern is some states where seat belt and texting while driving laws are secondary offenses, which means that a police officer can only issue citations for these offenses if he cites a driver for something else, such as speeding.
The hope is that stronger laws, along with increased efforts to enforce them, will make highways safer for everyone.
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